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Editor: I am afraid people will bring weapons into church because of the recent shooting in Texas. My heart breaks for the community in Sutherland Springs, Texas. My prayers are with them.

The sanctuary of a church is a place of safety and refuge. People come to worship. It is for comfort, healing, prayer and hearing the good news of love.

The sanctuary is a place of safety, so I do not understand the need for a weapon to protect myself. If I follow the rule to love others as myself, I cannot promote self-harm, nor harm to others, even in self-protection.

Jesus demonstrated forgiveness and love and touched people with healing grace and merciful goodness regardless of what folks might do to him. I cannot follow this religion and not care for others, or fear death.

Yet, I fear that in my own sanctuary there may be people with weapons to harm others in order to protect themselves or loved ones. My struggle is that there is no protection, there is no way to avoid death, which comes regardless of what I may want to do to stop it. Death comes too often from weapons that Americans seem to lust for and look to for life, instead of seeking the life God offered, of caring for one another as we care for ourselves.

It is difficult to think this way, harder yet to live as if every person is the most beloved of God, just as I want to be. The sanctuary offers a place filled with mercy, the offer of grace and hope and not to fear death. Jesus taught us to live without fear, without weapons, without hatred. If I truly follow Jesus then I am called to love even in the face of death because love overcomes fear and hatred.

REV. LOU DIVIS

ST. PETER’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH,

TUNKHANNOCK

Critical deductions

Editor: Three years ago my wife sustained a severe brain injury.

While out for her morning walk, she was struck by an inattentive driver. As the car veered off the road it hit a tree, spun around and struck my wife in the head as she walked on the sidewalk. Her brain injury and her physical condition require her to be a patient in a skilled nursing facility.

Because my wife and I were hard-working, middle class people who planned for the future, she does not qualify for medical assistance. Please note, we received very little compensation from the driver who hit her. The driver only was insured for the state’s minimum coverage and has no assets. Thus, no recourse against the driver was possible.

My wife is in a highly qualified nursing facility and receives wonderful care. However this care is expensive. All of her after-tax pension, all of her after-tax Social Security benefits and a large amount of our savings go to pay the thousands of dollars per month for her medical care.

The only saving grace, at this time, is that a lot of these costs are deductible on federal income taxes. This tax deduction and subsequent refund goes directly for her care. If the medical deduction is eliminated, as is called for in the current Republican tax plan, it will create a tremendous hardship for my family and others in similar situations.

I respectfully ask members of Congress to vote no on the tax bill in its current form. Please save our medical deductions. It’s a life-or-death situation.

GARY ZAVACKI

EXETER

Dishonored lost cause

Editor: It is unfortunate that Donald and Elizabeth Jones Moskowitz’s deserving tribute to veterans including her Civil War veteran forefathers (“Keep statues up,” Nov. 9) was diminished by their appeal on behalf of Confederate generals and monuments.

They were correct that the Civil War was fought to preserve the union, but only as to the motivation of the North. The losing South initiated and fought the war to preserve the right to buy, sell and enslave human beings. Confederate generals honored by monuments, although many were trained at West Point, were as treasonous to our country as was Benedict Arnold, who decades earlier had plotted to turn over West Point to the British.

For more than a century, our nation’s history has been distorted by Southern-favoring historians and popular culture in films and books, such as “Gone with the Wind.” They have turned the fervor and skill of the rebels into a patina that covered the insidious nature of the cause for which they fought. Much of this distortion has been enshrined by monuments whose alternate purpose was to intimidate and insult the descendants of slaves, preserve Jim Crow, or counter the civil rights movement.

The historical record should now be clear. Soldiers, such as Mrs. Moskowitz’s Jones ancestors from New York, and the people of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and the rest of the North fought for the right reason. They deserve public monuments. Conversely, their counterparts from Alabama, Virginia and the rest of the South should be remembered, but not honored, for their perfidy.

DAVID I. FALLK

CLARKS SUMMIT

Deviation on climate

Editor: In June President Trump, against the advice of scientists, world leaders, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and major U.S. corporations, chose to initiate a withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. At the time, 195 countries had signed the historic agreement.

Since then, the United States has experienced devastating hurricanes and wildfires. We have troops stationed in Africa, where climate change exacerbates political instability. China has taken the lead in clean energy production. Despite these developments the administration and Congress continue to push the use of fossil fuels, contributing to more climate change and threatening public lands, clean air and water.

Nicaragua signed the accord in October after initially saying the agreement did not do enough to reduce emissions. Recently, war-ravaged Syria indicated it, too, will sign. That leaves the United States as the sole country that will not participate once our withdrawal is effective in 2020. This is not America first, it is America last.

JANET CROWTHER

BENTON TWP.

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